The "hard-working" professor of the University of Literature

Another special point, compared to some teachers of the same period who were trained systematically (Dang Thai Mai, Nguyen Manh Tuong, Tran Duc Thao, Hoang Xuan Nhi), Truong Tuu is considered a professor who completely "rose up" and was recognized through self-study. Through the articleConfessionAs recorded later by Ton Thao Mien and Ha Cong Tai, Truong Tuu recounted that he was born into a poor family (few people knew, they thought he was from a middle-class family), his grandfather was a district magistrate but died after ten days, his grandmother brought the whole family back to Gia Lam to work and support each other. His father was quite strict but allowed Truong Tuu to develop freely according to his wishes. This would have a great impact on the formation and development of his personality, both in life and in his scientific statements. In 1927, while studying in the second year at Hang Than Primary School, Truong Tuu participated in a strike by a group of students from Truong Buoi demanding that the French government release Pham Tat Dac, the author of the poemWater Soul Summoning, and was expelled from school. However, with his intelligence and determination, Truong Tuu soon continued his path of "self-education": he left Hanoi to Hai Phong to study as a lathe worker, and once again because of his liberal ideology, he was expelled from school. Returning to Hanoi, Truong Tuu and some friends formed a self-study group and then completed the French baccalaureate program a few years later. From 1941 to 1946, Truong Tuu worked as the Director of Literature at Han Thuyen Publishing House, from here some of his scientific works and those of other scientists such as Dang Thai Mai and Cao Huy Dinh were published. During the years of resistance against the French, Truong Tuu was a member of the Vietnam Cultural Association, Vice President of the Thanh Hoa Cultural Association, participated in the Secretary of the Inter-Zone IV Resistance Arts Federation, taught at the Military Academy, and then at the University Preparatory School, the predecessor of the Literature General School, where he was officially appointed as a professor in 1957 and then dismissed from his position there...

Professor Truong Tuu (1913 - 1999)

Perhaps, if he had not encountered the "storm" of life, Truong Tuu would have made many more contributions to the path of teaching and scientific research. The unexpected event turned him from a teacher, journalist, writer, into a doctor for nearly 40 years, from 1959 until the days before his death (1999). After leaving his teaching job, Truong Tuu quietly returned to his family's private house on Hang Ga Street, self-studied medicine, cured people and saved himself. He passed away on August 16, 1999, leaving behind much grief for his colleagues and generations of Literature students from both the University of General and the University of Pedagogy. After his death, especially after 1986 when the country was reformed, many scientists, who were his students and admirers, took actions to reaffirm the contributions of the hard-working professor Truong Tuu. Thousands of his writings were reprinted; Two scientific conferences about him were organized by Hanoi Pedagogical University and the Vietnam Writers Association in 2008 and 2013 to point out the contributions and limitations of Professor Truong Tuu to the country's social sciences. In 2014, Professor Truong Tuu was awarded the Hanoi Literature and Arts AssociationLifetime Achievementfor his great contributions to science.

How to evaluate the personality and career of Professor Truong Tuu correctly and objectively after a long time he was forgotten and even "misunderstood"? First of all, it can be affirmed that, in terms of personality, according to the comments of some recent researchers, Truong Tuu was a "committed" and honest teacher, journalist, and writer. What is special is that most of his profound knowledge was accumulated through self-study and self-effort, so sometimes in his scientific statements, he was not easily accepted by many of his contemporaries. However, it cannot be denied that, no matter what field he was in, Truong Tuu lived his life to the fullest, innocently, enthusiastically as a citizen, writer, teacher, and scientist. In just over 25 years, from 1931 to 1956, Truong Tuu left behind thousands of pages of writing in many different fields (literature, culture, philosophy, history); He is also a writer (with dozens of published works such asA soldier-1938,When the bib falls down– 1939,When people are hungry– 1940,A double collar– 1940…), a social activist who devoted himself enthusiastically to the common progress of the nation. Some of his students, including Professor Ha Minh Duc, Professor Nguyen Dinh Chu, Professor Dang Thanh Le, Professor Nguyen Van Hoan, recounted that, even now, after many decades, they still remember clearly the clear and enthusiastic teaching voice of Mr. Truong Tuu. Talking about Truong Tuu's literary career, Nguyen Vy, a contemporary of his, said: "Truong Tuu belongs to the type of self-taught writer, thanks to reading a lot of books. Perhaps partly thanks to the training of Bach Nghe school, and his natural talent for literature and art, his theories are very strong, his sentences are like hammers, like pliers. His words resonate like the sound of iron being struck on an anvil. They are always fiery, making the ears hurt." Some others commented that Truong Tuu's writing is somewhat dry (Phong Le). Truong Tuu himself inConfessionalso admitted that he was not talented in fiction. His important contributions were probably mainly in the field of reference books, research, and critical theory, not only in the field of literature but also in the fields of philosophy, history, and culture. From 2003 to 2014, two researchers Trinh Ba Dinh and Nguyen Huu Son collected, selected, and introduced three works considered to be the most representative of Truong Tuu:Truong Tuu - Collection of critical research, Labor Publishing House, 2007;Truong Tuu - Prose Collection, Labor Publishing House, 2009; Truong Tuu - Collection of cultural research, Literature Publishing House, 2013. In particular, the two books on research and criticism have relatively fully demonstrated both the strengths and weaknesses of Truong Tuu in his research career.

The evaluations of Truong Tuu in the field of research and criticism, to be fair, up to now, have not necessarily had a completely unified voice. Some people think that his applications in Vietnamese literary criticism, especially in the criticism of the work Truyen Kieu, are still "hasty and extreme". Some others think that at the time Truong Tuu applied the "scientific criticism" (which he absorbed from many modern Western schools of that time such as Positivism, Psychoanalysis, and Marxism) was somewhat "brutal", even "shocking". However, when the country's social sciences were still in their "infancy", it cannot be denied that Truong Tuu's creative explorations brought a breath of fresh air. Professor Nguyen Van Trung, a researcher in the South before 1975, commented on the criticism and research style of Truong Tuu - Nguyen Bach Khoa and affirmed that: "Nguyen Bach Khoa is the first and only person who has put forward a clear critical concept and applied it systematically, with an engaging writing style. Regardless of whether the Marxist critical concept is correct or not, only considering the aspect of theory and writing in a systematic way, it must be admitted that Nguyen Bach Khoa is more successful than all critics before him and now (ie in 1968, the time Nguyen Van Trung wrote this article (Brief study of literature, 1972).

A truly accurate and fair assessment of Professor Truong Tuu’s contributions will certainly require more comments from many people and time. But at this point, we, the generation of teachers and students of the Faculty of Literature, Hanoi National University, have every right to be proud of him, the “hard-working and successful” professor of a time of “glory and bitterness”.